It is clear to me that it doesn't matter who the GOP trots out, the "conservatives" will vote for them and defend them to the bitter end.

Anything to make liberals cry, apparently.

Oh. brother

__________________A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise for to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. - Thomas Jefferson.

CNN) — Let's all agree that no other person ever elected President would have hurled a charge that his predecessor wiretapped him. Especially not in a tweet that referred to a former President this way: "This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

But as his supporters like to say, Donald Trump is no ordinary politician and, thus it was he who debased the presidency with wild accusations that Barack Obama organized a criminal conspiracy to wiretap him.

Inevitably,the most powerful man in the world found himself repudiated by the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who told a committee of Congress and a world watching on TV that his agency had found no evidence to support Trump's charge. And, of course, Trump chose to ignore the obvious lesson in this self-inflicted humiliation and, instead, continued to indulge his inner troll.

Trump's new abuse of the presidency, and the American public, actually began hours before a House committee would question director Comey and other security leaders on the controversy. By 6:35 a.m. Monday, Trump was up and at it on Twitter, spraying distractions in short bursts.

Quote:

"(Former director of national intelligence) James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!"

The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!"

The Russian attempt to meddle in the election and contacts between Russians and Trump associates were on the House committee's agenda. But much of the news the world awaited would come when witnesses were questioned on Trump's allegations about Obama.

Like everyone else who has paid attention to this controversy, an over-anxious Trump knew that Comey was going to shoot down his charges. His early morning tweets represented the ravings of a man who woke up with a bad feeling in his stomach about how the day would go.

Trump's pre-emptive tweets substituted media manipulation for sober leadership at a time of crisis. Only a truly inexperienced politician would fail to anticipate the damage this would do to himself, the presidency, his party, and the nation. Combine Trump's inexperience with a lifelong tendency to indulge in self-destructive behavior (see his many business bankruptcies) and you start to understand how the tweet storm began. Trump cannot resist attempting to shape reality through the media, and he has a level of self-confidence bordering on the delusional.

One can easily imagine the barrage continued as Trump hunkered before the TV like Nixon (minus the glass of whiskey) to watch the hearings and offer his instant responses. Surrounded by a staff mostly chosen for loyalty rather than competence, Trump commented with the skill of a practiced expert in the art of fake news, ignoring the big story -- Comey and the Justice Department debunked his charges against Obama -- and highlighting cherry-picked bits of testimony.

These two points and others offered by the President's staff were of the "dog-bites-man" variety. No controversy attends the issue of briefings given to Obama regarding Flynn, whose deceptions forced his resignation as national security advisor, and no responsible official advocates revealing the identities of people whose names are supposed to be held secret.

The real, not-fake news coming out of the hearing revolves around Comey's statement that "I have no information that supports those (Trump) tweets. We have looked carefully inside the FBI."

"The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components," Comey added, "the department has no information that supports those tweets."

In the face of Comey's testimony, Trump's reporting via Twitter is of the sort that would cause TV viewers to change the channel and newspaper readers to cancel their subscriptions. Trump's pre-hearing tweets about his election victory made him look defensive and weak. His responses during the event insulted the intelligence of the American public.

To use one of the President's favorite Twitter terms, it's "sad" to see that he still seems incapable of rising to the demands of the office he now holds. Tweets that accused his predecessor of serious crimes and function as propaganda, damage him and the nation in innumerable ways. They help explain the most recent Gallup poll, which found only 37% of Americans approve of how he's doing his job. No new President has gone so low, so fast, which is something we could say about the man himself.

Where is all of this heading? Trump and his allies got into this mess in large measure by talking out of turn. The President continued to do so by trolling Congress before and during the hearing. Given the power the legislative branch retains to investigate and compel officials to testify, this was probably a seriously bad idea.

I know this is the Trumpgate thread but I don't care about one of Trump's wild tweets.

After listening to the hearings I'd like to know the following:

Who is Christopher Steele?
Who paid him?
Is Christopher Steele a member of British intelligence or is he not?

The tweet about a former president is totally insulting but insignificant against what was implied in the hearings today.

So while the Russians were out to get Hillary Clinton cause they either hated her or wanted Trump, it appears that a reported British intelligence officer was collecting intelligence information on Trump.

Did the FBI really offer to pay for this dossier from a British intelligence officer?

If it was collected by McCain in November, when was this intelligence collected? For what purposes? Who hired this intelligence officer? I've heard two different names. Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Even the word Russian. What is Russian. Is Russian--Putin, or cyber hackers on the FBI most wanted list, or Julian Assange?

So what I just heard summarized on the radio. That the FBI has been charged by the Justice Department to investigate to ties between the Trump's tie to Russians which suggests that the president of the United States is some sort of Manchurian candidate.

Exactly. Trump has become too high maintenance. It's impossible to defend all his lying which is why Trix won't give me a solid answer and Chargers# could only say he "didn't know" what to think about it all.

No, that's not true. You have missed a post yesterday where I said that if Trump has been found to be lying, and obviously at the end of the investigation and there is NO proof of wiretapping or other surveillance by the Obama administration, and if he's been found wrong, it's on him. I have NO problem holding our elected officials responsible for their wrongdoings. I also think he should stop tweeting... He brings a lot of this crap on himself. Actions and consequences, and if it turns out that he becomes a four year president, it's his fault... Just like it was Clinton's fault she LOST the election. The Russians were not responsible for her loss. SHE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HER LOSS... Trump is NO worse a liar than Clinton is though. JMHO... We really had little choice between the candidates. I know some here think Clinton would have done a better job. I doubt it, seriously.

I know this is the Trumpgate thread but I don't care about one of Trump's wild tweets.

After listening to the hearings I'd like to know the following:

Who is Christopher Steele?
Who paid him?
Is Christopher Steele a member of British intelligence or is he not?

The tweet about a former president is totally insulting but insignificant against what was implied in the hearings today.

So while the Russians were out to get Hillary Clinton cause they either hated her or wanted Trump, it appears that a reported British intelligence officer was collecting intelligence information on Trump.

Did the FBI really offer to pay for this dossier from a British intelligence officer?

If it was collected by McCain in November, when was this intelligence collected? For what purposes? Who hired this intelligence officer? I've heard two different names. Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Even the word Russian. What is Russian. Is Russian--Putin, or cyber hackers on the FBI most wanted list, or Julian Assange?

So what I just heard summarized on the radio. That the FBI has been charged by the Justice Department to investigate to ties between the Trump's tie to Russians which suggests that the president of the United States is some sort of Manchurian candidate.

The dossier was produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 United States presidential election. The research was initially funded by Republicans who did not want Trump to be the Republican Party nominee for president. After Trump won the primaries, a Democratic client took over the funding; and, following Trump's election, Steele continued working on the report pro bono.

__________________
The President of the United States has misled or lied more than 1,600 times since January 20.
Donald Trump says something that isn't true 5.5 times a day. Every day.

Mother Jones is mentioned. Mother Jones received the dossier but refused to print it since none of it was ever verified.

Other news sources also refused. Interestingly enough, I heard an interview on NPR with Paul Wood BBC who said specifically that they had received the dossier but would not report anything without it being verified.

I did find a fake website on that day, that was not a BBC website, claiming that supporters of Jeb Bush had originally hired Christopher Steele but this was in June and I think Jeb Bush had dropped out months before this. This was attributed to Paul Wood, BBC.

I would highly recommend seeing this BBC website with Paul Wood dated January 17

Mr Steele, who was initially named in the US, is believed to be a former member of the Secret Intelligence Service - MI6 - and is a director of Orbis Business Intelligence - which describes itself as a leading corporate intelligence consultancy.

and

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said Mr Steele had previously been an intelligence officer - rather than agent - in MI6, who would have run a team of agents as an intelligence gatherer.
However, as Mr Steele was now working in the private sector, our correspondent said, there was "probably a fair bit of money involved" in the commissioning of the reports.

He said there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations and it was still possible the dossier had been based on what "people had said" about Mr Trump "without any proof".

Paul Woods reported (note that the FBI list 2 FSB officers in the yahoo hack):
He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB, the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information.

Basura and other interested parties... Despite Trump's ****-ups, I am going to continue to respect the office of the presidency and support this president. I see no valid reason not to support him. If he fails, my country fails. Last thing I want to see happen. It makes me sick to my stomach though to see some foaming at the mouth in hopes that they can put enough pressure on him to resign or gather enough dirt on him to impeach. To them I say... um, good luck with the empty witch hunt. Theirs is mostly actions motivated by partisan sore loserdom... not changing my mind here either. Even if Trump lied under oath like Bill Clinton... he ain't going no where. Donald Trump's actions pale in comparison to Bill Clinton's.... I get that many don't like him. He is unlikable
but I do like some of his conservative polices.... and I am not about to apologize for it to anyone.

Basura and other interested parties... Despite Trump's ****-ups, I am going to continue to respect the office of the presidency and support this president. I see no valid reason not to support him. If he fails, my country fails. Last thing I want to see happen. It makes me sick to my stomach though to see some foaming at the mouth in hopes that they can put enough pressure on him to resign or gather enough dirt on him to impeach. To them I say... um, good luck with the empty witch hunt. Theirs is mostly actions motivated by partisan sore loserdom... not changing my mind here either. Even if Trump lied under oath like Bill Clinton... he ain't going no where. Donald Trump's actions pale in comparison to Bill Clinton's.... I get that many don't like him. He is unlikable
but I do like some of his conservative polices.... and I am not about to apologize for it to anyone.

Your opinion is noted.
Despite what you stated a few days ago, you are NOT "going after him"'.

Quote:

Donald Trump's actions pale in comparison to Bill Clinton's

So having sex with a willing intern is more damaging to the country than baselessly accusing the former president of a criminal act?

Having his campaign officials under criminal investigation for possible criminal acts [collusion/collaboration with Russian officials] is somehow not detrimental to the security of the US and is less than Clinton's sex affair?

OKEEE then.

__________________
The President of the United States has misled or lied more than 1,600 times since January 20.
Donald Trump says something that isn't true 5.5 times a day. Every day.